Confluence of Opposites

SR No.: 006704
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Champat Rai Jain
Publication Year: 1921
Total Pages: 422
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 78

60
SCIENCE
scientists had to contend with, however, was not the true view of Religion, but a highly misleading theological fallacy of mystic origin which regarded the soul as absolutely immaterial and unchanging, For this reason we do not take the scientist's denial of the soul to be absolute, as he has never had a chance of considering the true view.
According to Religion, spirit and matter are both substances which have a number of properties but not consciousness in common between them. Consciousness is the exclusive property of spirit or soul-substance, which, consequently, is not an 'immaterial' entity, in all respects, but only in so far as it is not material, that is to say, not made of matter, Both spirit and matter are capable of affecting each other under certain condi tions, e. g., the curing of disease by purely mental suggestion, the augmentation and diminution of the degree of consciousness by certain drugs and medicaments, and the like. The effect of the union or fusion of spirit and matter is the curtailment of the faculties and functions of the former, so that nirvana actually implies nothing more or less than the complete emancipation of the soul from the pernicious companionship of matter. Under the influence of matter when it is of the very worst type, the soul's consciousness is reduced almost to what may be termed the zero point, and it is then capable of only responding to barest sensations of touch.